1. Field of the Invention
This invention is concerned with the anti-sapstain treatment of wood.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Freshly felled timber contains large quantities of fungal nutrients such as sugars. These, together with a high moisture content in the wood make it extremely susceptible to blue stain and mold attack. In order to prevent the wood from such fungal discoloration, the wood is normally treated, by spraying or dipping with a preservative and it is known to incorporate in such preservatives, as an active ingredient, a fungicidal isothiazolone such as that marketed by Rohm and Haas Company as Kathon 893.
A problem which has been noted when dipping wood into solutions of isothiazolone fungicides is that the wood tends preferentially to strip the isothiazolone from the treating mixture so that the concentration of the isothiazolone in the mixture rapidly drops. This has the effect that wood dipped into or sprayed with a freshly made treating mixture is excessively treated with isothiazolone, whereas wood which is dipped into or sprayed with a mixture which has already been used substantially may acquire too little isothiazolone from the mixture which is by then depleted in isothiazolone. Clearly it would be advantageous if the take-up of isothiazolone by wood from the mixture were to be substantially the same as the take-up of the other components of the mixture so that the isothiazolone concentration in the mixture, as the mixture is used, would remain substantially the same.